Governor Douglas is flying off to Korea and other Asian nations this October. With his delegation of business leaders Douglas is off to sell not just investment in Vermont but citizenship in the USA through investment. For $500,000 dollars (half the amount required in other areas) and 10 jobs later and you can get to be a citizen through the Federal EB-5 program.

Foreign travel is always good for broadening ones horizons and policy experience but show us the jobs Jim, the ones this program may have already created. The EB-5 program has been in use in Vermont already and according to the gov. benefited Vermont tremendously so take the time (the trip is in October) to document why this is in fact working for the state as a whole. Justify your flight; show your numbers flash your stats .How many jobs have been created by EB-5 investment to date, how long do they last, what are the wages paid? What has the EB-5 done for Vermont to date? Justify it with some facts, then go, enjoy. But don’t forget to let the Lt. Governor know you are headed out of state.

Governor Jim Douglas announced he will lead a delegation of Vermont business leaders seeking investors for their companies, especially through the EB-5 program, on a mission to Asia in October, which will include stops in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program gives preferential consideration for permanent resident visas to immigrants who make qualified investments in a new commercial enterprise that will create at least 10 full-time jobs.  In most areas of Vermont the required investment is only $500,000 – half the standard $1 million required in most other areas of the country.

“Vermont’s economy has benefited tremendously from the investments made in our businesses through the EB-5 program,” Governor Douglas said. “This trip will allow us to showcase the opportunities for investors here in Vermont, as well as to promote general trade with these countries.”

http://www.vermontbiz.com/news…

Face it folks, committee work isn’t always pretty. The products of committees reflect input of enough folks to move a proposal forward, and one can’t really know the end result until the finished product is voted out.

So what we’re reading today is not necessarily what we will be reading in the end.

That said ….

Here’s a link to H3200, the only health ‘reform’ proposal in the public domain.

And there is good and bad in it.

One of my complaints regarding forced insurance coverage, even … nay … especially where government subsidies will come into play, is simple: more of our collectively owned tax dollars will be siphoned off to big corporate investor America and the uber-wealthy making a financial killing off these investments (which we have to bail out from time to time … witness the latest multi-trillion dollar deal that saved the investor class, including today’s insurance companies).

Have no fear, deep concern this will happen again.

17 SEC. 116. ENSURING VALUE AND LOWER PREMIUMS.

18 (a) IN GENERAL.-A qualified health benefits plan

19 shall meet a medical loss ratio as defined by the Commis-

20 sioner. For any plan year in which the qualified health

21 benefits plan does not meet such medical loss ratio, QHBP

22 offering entity shall provide in a manner specified by the

23 Commissioner for rebates to enrollees of payment suffi-

24 cient to meet such loss ratio.

(H3200, page 24)

This sounds really great. If a given insurance company is making too much profit, they have to return such excess to the subscribers in the form of rebates.

But who gets to define what is excessive?

1 (b) BUILDING ON INTERIM RULES.-In imple-

2 menting subsection (a), the Commissioner shall build on

3 the definition and methodology developed by the Secretary

4 of Health and Human Services under the amendments

5 made by section 161 for determining how to calculate the

6 medical loss ratio. Such methodology shall be set at the

7 highest level medical loss ratio possible that is designed

8 to ensure adequate participation by QHBP offering enti-

9 ties, competition in the health insurance market in and

10 out of the Health Insurance Exchange, and value for con-

11 sumers so that their premiums are used for services.

(H3200, page 25)

As it turns out the government will be setting the excessive profit threshold. When was the last time you and I had a seat at the table for this kind of decision making?

The sausage currently being mashed together doesn’t include Palin’s death panels, lost coverage or killing off old people as the radical right wing Republican Party would have us believe. But it does have things of concern.

The insurance companies are getting their bread buttered on both sides: on one side are those who want to kill any attempt at reasonable changes in how we pay for medical care; and on the other side, just in case the first side lands face down, is an almost guarantee they (the insurance companies) will not suffer their huge profits and multi-million/billion dollar pay packages.

Anybody who believes this proposal provides a path to a single payer system isn’t paying attention.

Here's a story that hasn't been in the Times yet, probably because it's a New England centered story. It could be read as just one more petty story of intra-diplomatic intrigue, but it seems to be revealing of one of the main barriers to peace in the Middle East.

Leaders of Boston’s Jewish community yesterday rallied strongly behind Israel’s consul general for New England, Nadav Tamir, who was summoned to Jerusalem this week to explain his controversial memo saying Israel’s handling of its relations with the United States was “causing strategic damage’’ to American public support for Israel.

Here's a quote from the memo: Throughout the years, opinion polls have shown that the two most significant factors in US public support are the perception of a partnership in values and interests, and the perception that Israel seeks to end the conflict with its neighbors (hence the consistent public support of our right to self defense). These two parameters have suffered greatly recently. In many American circles, there is a feeling these days, that while the Obama administration tries to resolve global conflicts, it must deal with the refusal to cooperate by governments in Iran, North Korea, and Israel. Aaron Miller's words, spoken after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, clearly show this feeling. He said it was a meeting between Obama yes we can and Netanyahu no you won't.

So what's he talking about? How about the fact that after years of international recognition that Israel's settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, and years of politely requesting that Israel stop, the Obama administration is showing signs that it might be serious about it? How about the fact that Netanyahu is continuing to insist on expanding Israel's illegal settlements? How about the fact that Americans are finally starting to catch on that Israel is pursuing a maximalist policy?

Of course, this kind of thing never gets leaked by accident. Whenever you see one of these diplomatic kerfuffles, whether it be the U-2 spy plane case back in the 1960's, the confrontations with Iran in the Persian Gulf a few years ago, or this, you need to think about who's doing the leaking and why.

In this case, it appears to be the hardliners, leaking the memo in order to publicly recall the consul general and undermine his position.

In other words, the opponents of peace with the Palestinians are demonstrating that they have the upper hand. Not surprising considering Netanyahu is on top, is it?

I only check out Vermont Tiger if I’m feeling uninspired to blog, as there’s always tons of material there. Unsubstantiated claims supported by discredited or mischaracterized links generally, but sometimes they’re just silly:

If Texas asks us not to mess with ’em, perhaps they will let us copy some public policies that seem to have worked so well […] There’s a reason why Texas has the 2nd-largest Gross State Product in 2008.

Yeah, there is a reason. It’s that Texas has the 2nd-largest state population. California has both the highest population and (predictably) the highest gross state product. I suspect the VT Tiger folks wouldn’t have us emulate California.

A more helpful (but still inadequate as a standalone) metric might be to look at per capita, gross state product, where mighty Texas drops waaaaaay down to #22 – that would be right after #21 – Vermont. Oops (Oops, indeed – as apparently this relative ranking is no longer current – see comments – although Doug, your link doesn’t work…).

For our friends at Vermont Tiger, then, I offer the following that has been making the rounds on the internet (ht fdl):

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

[Cross-posted at Broadsides.org]

Well, not literally. Because liberals don’t fuck. They donate. Sperm. To people they’d apparently rather not meet (or fuck). But they’ve convinced themselves that it somehow feels better this way. For a while. Until, that is, they realize that those to their right and – most assuredly — to the their left – are having more fun. And then they bitch and moan. Which, I guess, helps them forget that they don’t fuck.

See, I’ve got it all figured out.

—

I’m speaking, of course, about the liberal whine-fest going on about the right-wingers who are daring to show their passion in public by standing up and speaking out about the Democrats’ new “health-insurance reform” plans. Sure, these right-wingers need to be dissed for the nefarious ways in their thinking (earth to wingers: your arguments are half-baked at best). But your passion is pretty cool.

And, unfortunately for those of us who believe in real and total – gasp! – socialized medicine for every man, woman and child in this country (you know, kind of like Canada), the right-wingers are kicking some activist ass, forcing the health-care reform possibilities to slip in the same ditch they died in back in 1992.

But since the liberals hate passion, they’re counter strategy for the moment is to diss passion, wag their fingers in rebuke, claim American democracy is based on “civility” (try telling that to the Iraqis, Afghanis, et al), and otherwise sit wringing their hands in a fit of nervous and judgmental nothingness. You can’t do that!

Um, liberals, they CAN do that. In fact, they ARE doing that. And – again unfortunately – they’re winning by moving the heath-care debate into the nebulous never-land of complete and utter nonsense. Why do you think your almighty savior, Obama, hasn’t uttered the words “single-payer” since before he needed your vote? Or, for that matter, why do you think Obama’s new goal is to simply “reform the insurance industry?”

Let me answer those questions: Because the right-wingers are showing passion and the liberals are busy crying foul over the display of passion. Losers.

I really love it when the liberals are declaring that the passion being shown by the wrong-headed rightists is being orchestrated by an “organized movement.” And what’s the problem with that? Yo liberals, try it sometime. But, be careful, you might find that you have to actually stand up and speak out for something other than Team Democrat at election time. Oh no, there go the cocktail party invitations and 4-star ratings at your favorite ninny-liberal blog!

I had the opportunity to hear a bit of Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders on the radio this afternoon. He was huffing and puffing about the right-wing passion and, while admonishing them, he actually declared that “American democracy is based on civility.”

Sorry, but you have to be neck-deep in liberal bullshit to believe this. And you’d also have to be totally and completely devoid of any understanding of American history, too. Because there was nothing very civil about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the war on the Native Americans, the fight for rights for women and minorities or, for that matter, the fights for workers’ rights. People died for these causes. So stop getting your panties in a fucking wad about some dopes who stand up and speak out of turn at a meeting.

But we all know why they’re pissed. Because they’re afraid of passion. They’re afraid to risk anything for their beliefs. And they’re devoid of the ability to do much of anything politically other than bet it all on some election-day fantasy involving the “next best hope.”

Yeah, it must suck to be a liberal. So much rhetoric, so little action, and so many other people to blame for your inaction.

Go forth and agitate. You know, like Malcolm X, John Brown, Scott Nearing and Emma Goldman.  

(Thanks to BP for pointing out this eye-rolling piece. What really seems to irk this guy more than anything about the state is that Vermont had the gall to grant full rights of citizenship to gays and lesbians, as he’s harped on the topic before. – promoted by odum)

The Free Press has a sad lament by a man claiming he must leave Vermont. This is the second I believe in a series the Free Press is running. Sort of an ongoing Festivus style airing of the grievances on Why Vermont has failed me theme. Today’s public  lamentation goes a step further than some noting multiple areas that Vermont has allegedly failed this poor and long suffering fellow. Taxes, naturally are in the mix, trivialization of the institution of marriage makes the list but new and perhaps foremost is the perceived lack of pride in America by Vermonters.

Our apparently soon to depart uber-patriot questions; Are Vermonters still proud to be Americans? Thus adding failure of being properly proud to his list. He does note that perhaps many Vermonters are still proud of America, but the pervasive attitude seems to him

“a grievance mentality that indicts America at every opportunity. It’s a mentality that cheers President Obama as he travels the world apologizing for America. That mentality expresses itself in many ways, chief among them the tendency to assert moral equivalency between America’s enemies and America’s defenders. This mentality has been especially offended by the forceful and successful actions taken by the Bush administration after 9/11 to protect the American people from the terrorists who would kill them.”

This fellow is truly grieved by the grievance mentality he imagines to surround him. A grievance mentality, high living costs, taxes and perceived lack of proper pride are moving motivation for some. I would suggest a tolerance mentality might work wonders and save expensive moving costs.

He does however strike a conciliatory note at the end and even hints that he may not actually be leaving at all. I guess he sees a glimmer of hope that one day we will walk in lock step with what he sees as the proper way.

No doubt Vermonters offended by the things I’ve said will want to tell us not to let the door hit us on the way out. Well, we won’t be leaving soon, and there’s still hope that Vermont can recapture the spirit of personal independence that made this nation great. We fear, however, that the majority of Vermonters are increasingly embracing personal dependence on government.

Well, well, well. With all the scapegoating and fist-shaking being done at bloggers from unimaginative newspaper folk in denial about the realities of the changing media landscape, but desperate to find a bad guy to blame it on (for all the good it will do them), this is a refreshing change of pace. In a direct response to ramped-up, aggressive efforts by the Associated Press to police the excerpting and linking of their content and punitively charge for linking that falls clearly within the realm of “fair use” law, Chris Ahearn (“President, Media at Thomson Reuters”) offers the following on his blog (naturally), while presenting Reuters as a more measured, less reactionary, and more forward-thinking alternative to the imploding dinosaur that is the AP:

[…]yes the global economy is fairly grim and the cyclical aspects of our business are biting extremely hard in the face of the structural changes. But the Internet isn’t killing the news business any more than TV killed radio or radio killed the newspaper. Incumbent business leaders in news haven’t been keeping up.[…]

[…]Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.[…]

[…]I don’t believe you could or should charge others for simply linking to your content. Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged. If someone wants to create a business on the back of others’ original content, the parties should have a business relationship that benefits both.

Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations across party lines. Let’s get online publishers, search engines, aggregators, ad networks, and self-publishers (bloggers) in a virtual room and determine how we can all get along.

Ooo. But that’s hardly the message many of our local media “experts” have been giving us, as recently as last week. Rutland Herald General Manager Catherine Nelson and WCAX’s Adam Sullivan clearly think if those rotten bloggers would just go away and stop stealing the news, traditional media would blossom anew.  As these folks, and so many of their peers eagerly echo, the bloggers are the problem. How can they be part of the solution?

Even the esteemed Rutland Herald editor David Moats warns against a future left in the hands of “blogmaniac(s).”

With all these experts so vigorously identifying bloggers as the media boogeyman, clearly this Ahearn guy is talking out of his depth. I mean, who cares what he thinks? It’s not like he’s a President of Reuters or anything…

Although originally described as a spontaneous uprising, it soon became clear that the recount riot was organized by then-Congressman John Sweeney (R-NY), who had issued the order to “shut it down.”

(A grateful President George W. Bush would later nickname Sweeney “Congressman Kickass,” for reasons that are all his own.)

And wouldn’t you know it — the “Brooks Brothers rioters” are back.

(‘Brooks Brothers riot alumni’ spotted at anti-health rally, Raw Story, 090807)

Can we say astro-turf outrage gaining real advantage? NOT AGAIN DAMINIT!

Something else … could well be more important:

FBI whistle blower Sibel Edmonds has for the first time been able to give testimony without the feds jumping to shut her up with claims of state secrets.

She has always claimed she has information regarding illegal activities on the part of high elected officials. I interviewed Sibel years ago when she first tried to go public, but the cheney/bush administration made sure she could never talk about what she knew.

Times could be changing.

“From my opinion, if I’m some of the current members of Congress, I’d be very very worried about the information that’s going to come out of this. There are current members of Congress that she has implicated in bribery, espionage. It’s not good. It’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy. For people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it, in my opinion, it’s negligence.

[Which current members have been implicated?]

[Dan] Burton (R-IN), described as basically accepting bribes and involved in espionage for the Turkish government…she could not discuss the extremely illegal activities that Mr. Burton committed against U.S. interests, as she put it.

(BradBlog post)

As we learned from vtbuzz the other day:

On the shores of Lake Memphramagog this weekend, the Progressive Party state committee will hear from gubernatorial candidate Susan Bartlett.

The committee heard earlier in the year from Doug Racine.

The meeting was scheduled for 10 this morning, and I’d love to hear a report. What about it? Any of our Progressive readership have a first hand account to share?

Until such a report emerges, the rest of us can place bets as to how long before Markowitz changes course on approaching the Progressive Party proper, rather than remain the only Democrat not to to address them collectively. I say it’ll be their next state committee meeting.

From Sen. Sanders’s website:

Sen. Bernie Sanders will soon begin a weekly series of web-isodes on various topics with Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films.  This program will be available on www.sanders.senate.gov on Monday, Aug. 10 and regularly on Thursdays thereafter.